


King's Destiny

by kitsunealyc



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Banter, Damen can Politic Too!, M/M, Original Mythology, Post-Canon, Religion, Worldbuilding, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2017-12-21
Packaged: 2019-02-17 22:13:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13086459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitsunealyc/pseuds/kitsunealyc
Summary: Damen is skilled in the arena of war, and Laurent in the arena of politics, but in the wake of defeating Kastor and the Regent, they find themselves facing a challenge neither of them is prepared for--the arena of the gods.





	King's Destiny

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sassafrasx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sassafrasx/gifts).



Morning sun streamed through the balconette doors of the suite that had been Damen’s since his voice broke. The sheer drape of the bed canopy fell in clean lines where it was tied back to the columns. The blood that was let during Kastor’s coup had been scoured and bleached from the marble floor. Kastor was dead at the hands of Laurent of Vere, and Damianos of Akielos was acknowledged to be the rightful king of Akielos. All had been returned to how it should have been. Only Damen had changed, and it was that change that had him growling at the poor nurse who’d come with his breakfast.

“I do not want to have my dressing ‘seen to,’” he explained in what he felt to be a very reasonable tone, given the circumstances. “I do not want another cup of tsai or bowl of bone broth. I do not want another massage, or oil scraping, or so much as a damned toenail paring! What I want is for someone to bring me a chiton and take me to his highness the fucking Prince of Vere _. NOW!_ ”

As Damen’s voice rose, his fist fell. It landed on the edge of the sickbed tray, flipping it. Dishes, utensils, broth, and tea went flying. The liquids left a splash pattern across the marble floor. The utensils clattered and the dishes shattered. The nurse, who’d been edging back in the face of her king’s anger, stumbled. She would have fallen among the ruins of Damen’s breakfast, if not for the appearance of the aforementioned Prince of Vere in the doorway. He caught her and set her back on her feet.

“That is quite enough,” said Laurent. He let the nurse flee the room and picked his way through the mess on the floor, graceful and fastidious as a cat.

Damen took in the sight of him, his first conscious one in a fortnight, though Paschal had assured him that Laurent had often been at Damen’s side those first few days when injury had become infection, and Damen was insensate with fever.

Laurent had rebuilt himself in those two weeks. Gone was the bedraggled youth in the stained chiton who stood against his uncle’s accusations and would not bend or break. Who had offered himself so that Damen would be free to take back Akielos by force of arms. Here was the Prince of Vere as Damen had first seen him—gold and ivory, bound severely in midnight brocade, with eyes as blue and cold as the Ellosean Sea in winter.

“Was this really necessary?” Laurent asked, frowning at the mess.

“It got you to come.” Now that Laurent was—finally—standing before him, Damen’s anger quickly turned into heat of another sort. Oh, he was still annoyed, but that could be addressed later, after—

“Careful, you’ll get broth on me.” Laurent leaned away from Damen’s reaching hand.

“So I get broth on you.” Lunging forward—and ignoring the pain that shot through his gut at the sudden movement—Damen caught his wrist, tugged him close enough to get an arm around his waist. He dragged Laurent onto his chest.

Sighing, Laurent relented, the barest shadow of a smile, like a sickle moon, curving his lips. “Are you certain you want to start something you can’t finish?”

“I can fin- _ah!_ ” Damen flinched and released his hold when Laurent’s fingers gouged into the tender muscles above his wound. But Laurent was mistaken if he thought that would free him. Damen had fought through the haze of worse pain than that. He recaptured Laurent’s wrist, but this time exercised some prudence, only tugging him to sit on the edge of the bed.

“What is wrong?” Damen asked, searching for and failing to find any answer’s in Laurent’s smooth expression.

“What makes you think anything is wrong?”

Damen opened his mouth to list the many indicators, but something in the mild question gave him pause. Laurent was not the sort to attack outright. He laid traps for his enemies to catch themselves in. His question was such a trap.

But if Laurent’s talent was in laying out traps that were impossible to untangle, then Damen’s was in cutting through them.

“You want to start a fight,” he said. “You want me angry so that I will leave you alone. You weren’t like this before I was stuck in bed for two weeks, so something happened, and you’ve decided to handle it on your own rather than involve me. I’m not going to let you do that, so you might as well save me a pounding headache and yourself the frustration of watching me upend all your schemes with my bumbling. Tell me.”

Damen wished he had some talent at art. He would give up Delpha again for a sketch of Laurent’s expression in that moment. For the rueful smile that followed, he’d give all of Akielos.

“My barbarian king.” Laurent took his hand, threading their fingers—his pale, elegant, smooth; Damen’s dark, blunt, calloused—a study in contrasts. “You _would_ bumble through even if you did figure out what I was doing, just to punish me for keeping secrets.”

“Possibly. It would depend on how much broth you made me suffer through.”

The smile faded, leaving a pensive look in its place. “You weren’t ‘stuck in bed’ for two weeks. You were badly wounded. And then, when it seemed like you might not die from that, your wound became infected. You were nearly lost not once, but twice, and I…” He shut his eyes, swallowing what sounded very much like a sob. He clenched Damen’s hand hard enough for his nails to leave half-moons across the back.

And then Damen understood. Auguste hadn’t lingered. King Aleron hadn’t lingered. Even the Regent’s execution had been swift and final. Laurent had never sat a death vigil, powerless to do anything but watch the person dearest to him teeter between life and death. Damen knew that hell. He’d gone through it with his father.

Lifting his free hand, he brushed his thumb across Laurent’s lashes, catching the tears tangled there.

Laurent drew breath at the touch, lifting his head and shaking free of the emotion that had overtaken him before it could dig in and drag him down. He let the breath out in a long, shuddering sign. And another, and another. Each breath came steadier than the last. Each one, Damen watched him rebuild the façade of control. In its way, it was the most intimate thing Laurent had ever shown him, a view of him from the inside out.

“I could do nothing for you,” Laurent eventually said, voice steady as though the previous moments had never happened. “So I focused on doing what I could for Akielos. And…”

“And…?” Damen prodded when Laurent’s silence went on for longer than Damen’s shortened patience.

“And we have a problem. I assume you know of the Sibyllae of Isthima?”

He did. In the days of old Artes, the Sibyllae of Isthima had been the ruling force, speakers for the gods. It was they who named the kyroi, and removed them when the gods were displeased—or more accurately, when the Sibyllae were displeased, for there were not gods to speak for, only the shifting will of the Sibyllae.

Damen studied Laurent, looking for some clue as to why he’d be asking about obsolete sects of discredited religions. “They served as speakers for the gods, back before King Agathon convinced the people to set aside such superstition. Why?”

Pressing fingers to the spot between his brows, Laurent said, “And I assume he did that convincing at the point of a sword?”

“There were those among the kyroi who resisted. The Sibyllae were corrupt. They served nothing but themselves. They tried to place Agathon’s cousin on the throne because he catered to them. Agathon put an end to their power. It wasn’t until Queen Agar’s day that Isthima was brought back to Akielos.”

Laurent rose and went to the balconette that looked out over Ios harbor. Damen had seen that view enough to know that Isthima would be a hazy smudge on the horizon. Laurent glared out as though he could smear it from existence with his will alone. “You cannot eradicate belief from people’s hearts, any more than you can end slavery because it is wrong, or join two kingdoms because they were once one.”

There was more here than residual fear for Damen’s health. Laurent was pulling away again. Damen sat up, biting down on a grunt of pain when his wound pulled. “Watch me,” he said softly.

Just as softly, Laurent said, “Some things have power even after death. Think of Delfeur.” And, unspoken, _think of Auguste_.

Damen thought of neither. He knew only one thing that could drive Laurent into this state of rigid containment. “What did your uncle do?” It would be like the Regent to leave traps to destroy them even after his death.

Laurent’s bitter laugh caught Damen off-guard. “Ironically, it wasn’t my uncle this time.” He turned, a shadow limned by the morning light of Ios. “It was your brother. He restored the Sibyllae to power.”

***

Bathed and wearing a fresh chiton and sandals, with Laurent at his side and Nikandros at his shoulder, Damen entered his father’s council chamber.

No, _his_ council chamber. Whatever questions might overshadow his accession because of Kastor’s actions, Damen was king in Akielos.

The kyroi had come to Ios while their king lingered in his recovery bed. Nikandros had done well by Damen, calling them to assemble, noting each one’s mood, and reporting it to Laurent, who’d passed that and his own observations along to Damen. But now Laurent stood aside, as did Nikandros. The crown was Damen’s; he couldn’t appear before them as someone else’s puppet.

They turned their attention to Damen as he entered, each kyros surrounded by their bannermen. In a smaller chamber, it would have seemed crowded, but the king’s council chamber was large and airy, with seaward arches that let in the breezes off the Gulf of Atros. The air tasted of salt and anticipation.

“Sit,” said Damen, taking the king’s seat at the head of the room. A second seat had been drawn up beside his, and Laurent took up his usual languid pose, one leg stretched before him, one hand draped over the arm with a studied lack of concern for propriety.

Most of the kyroi sat as well, each at the bench for their province, with their bannermen arrayed behind them. All save one—Alkyone, Kyros of Isthima. She lifted her chin and studied Damen. Among her bannermen stood a steel-haired woman in the purple chiton of the Sibyllae. Cymone, sibyl to the gods.

“Is your bench not to your liking, Kyros?” Damen asked.

“It is not the bench I take issue with.” The omission of Damen’s title, of any form of address, was insult enough, but then Alkyone compounded it by turning her back to the assembly. To Damen. “As there is no King to convene us, we will return to Isthima,” she said to her captains—for Isthima had no army, but it boasted a very strong navy—and started for the door.

Two of the other kyroi—Therapon of Ellium and Oulixes of Kesus—looked as though they might rise to follow. The rest watched Damen to see what he would do.

A quick glance at Laurent revealed the flat lips and narrowed eyes of an unspoken _I told you so_. He had warned Damen against convening the Kyroi until they’d had a chance to feel out Cymone and soften Alkyone.

But that was not the way things were done in Akielos, and Damen knew well how to put a fractious kyros in her place.

“General Makedon.”

“Your Majesty.” Makedon stepped up beside Nikandros’ bench, head bowed, fist to his chest.

“Isthima’s chair is vacant. You have served us well in removing the traitor Kastor, as you served our father before us. Take your seat, Makedon, Kyros of Isthima.”

“You cannot do that!” Alkyone shrieked, turning again to face Damen.

“Is Isthima present, then?” he asked, mildly. “Her kyros is welcome to fight us for right of place if there is some question of our authority.”

Damen was so enjoying Alkyone’s jaw-cracking, impotent fury that he almost missed the soft exhalation from Laurent. A laugh. The heat in his gaze as he watched Damen distracted from Alkyone’s muttered, “It would be unfair to fight an injured man.”

Forcing his eyes off Laurent, Damen said, “This man could grind you into the dust, injured or not.”

Several more moments passed, the Alkyone nodded once, sharply, and took her place. Her faction arrayed behind her. Therapon and Oulixes settled.

“We still note several seats empty. We hope General Makedon that you will not take insult if we name you to Sicyon instead?”

“More insulting if you’d stuck me on a southern island,” Makedon muttered, adding a belated, “your Majesty,” when Nikandros kicked his ankle. He took the seat left vacant by the traitor Meniados, bleeding off several bannermen from Delpha’s faction.

“Nikandros of Delpha,” Damen said, half amused and half chiding.

“Your Majesty.” Nikandros stood, copying Makedon’s salute.

“You have served us well in removing the traitor Kastor, and these many years as Kyros of Delpha. We value your advice above all others and would have you always closest to our ear. Take your seat, Nikandros, Kyros of Ios.”

“I am honored to serve, your Majesty.”

Murmurs and shuffling followed as Nikandros shifted, leaving many of his bannermen behind at the empty chair for Delpha. Several eyes went to Makedon in Sicyon’s seat—the obvious choice for Kyros of Delpha—and then to Damen in resentment. Clearly the details of the treaty with Vere had made their way to the kyroi, and nobody was pleased at losing Delpha. But Damen had a solution to that problem that should please everyone.

Except, perhaps, Laurent.

“We note one seat empty,” Damen said. He didn’t have to look to feel Laurent’s reaction, the stiffening of his languid posture, the cold gaze boring into him. He turned and met that glare. “Our brother of Vere.”

After the slightest hesitation, Laurent drawled, “Am I also expected to stand and beat my chest? It seems an exhausting amount of effort when I’m already right here. Say what you will, my brother of Akielos.”

That tone. Oh yes, he was furious, for the surprise if nothing else. Damen smiled. “It is not necessary between equals. According to our treaty, Delpha is returned to Vere. However, even in the years when she was held captive, Delpha had a kyros to give the king council on how to regain her. And she should have one now. Laurent, King of Vere, you have proven yourself a true friend and ally of Akielos. As a first step toward bringing our kingdoms into harmony, will you take the seat as Kyros of Delpha?”

Damen ignored the surge of questions that followed from his other kyroi, watching only the surprise blossom as a faint flush in Laurent’s ivory cheeks. He nodded, dumbfounded.

“You see,” Damen murmured as Laurent rose to take his seat. “I can politic too.”

***

“You could have warned me,” Laurent grumbled later, after the fraught first meeting of the kyroi had disbanded and the court had opened for its first celebration in honor of its returned and recovered king. They were enjoying a brief lull alone while the seneschal fetched the next person of importance who wanted to assure Damen that they’d always supported him over his brother.

Grinning, Damen asked, “Where would be the fun in that?”

“And don’t expect me to put you on my council in return.”

“There is definitely no fun in that.” Damen let his grin soften into satisfaction and leaned back on his kline. Sitting for hours listening to arguing kyroi had not been good for either his healing gut wound or his limited patience.

But this… Damen gave himself over to the lassitude of contentment. Lamplight warmed the clean marble arches and columns of the megaron. The same simplicity of color and design was echoed in the curve of the amphorae, the scrolling woodwork of the klinai and tables, the swaying fall of chitons from mingling courtiers and bannermen. It was not the chipped-away desecration Damen had witnessed at Marlas. This was the Akielos he loved, the Akielos he had missed, the Akielos he’d wanted to share with Laurent, who currently looked very far from charmed.

“Are you angry because I didn’t tell you, or because you didn’t think of it?” Damen asked after the next supplicant—a contemporary of his grandfather’s—had been sent off with assurances that Veretian armies wouldn’t be trampling through his vineyards. “You have to admit, it solves several of our problems.”

“And creates others. You did note the presence of the sibyl at Alkyone’s side. Calling her bluff didn’t resolve that issue.”

“She didn’t seem to have much to say.” Cymone had remained silent through the meeting, not even taking the chance to whisper in Alkyone’s ear.

“She seems to have things to say now.”

It was not hard to seek her out. The purple chiton was a dark stain in a room of light and pale colors.

Damen’s fingers tightened around his silver goblet when he found her. “Speaking with Therapon of Ellium and Oulixes of Kesus.”  Bad enough to lose Isthima, but that he could afford temporarily. If Ellium and Kesus withdrew, that left Ios isolated. Isthima could use her navy to block the ports, and with no land route through which to move forces, Damen would have more difficulty keeping the northern provinces in line, short of bolstering Makedon with forces from Patras or Vere.

Setting his cup aside, Damen started to rise. Laurent rose with him and signaled the steward who’d been serving them. “His Majesty has offered to show me the statuary garden. Notify the seneschal when he returns that we can be found there.”

Somehow, instead of confronting the sibyl, Damen found himself steered out onto a path that circled a long reflecting pool. At one end, the megaron glowed warm gold in the twilight. At the other, the cliff dropped, leaving a clear view of the Gulf of Atros painted in sunset colors.

“You cannot challenge a priestess to a duel,” Laurent murmured, pretending great interest in a column topped by a bull’s head of painted plaster.

Damen glanced back toward the megaron. “Watch me.”

“ _Listen_ to me.” Laurent turned on Damen. “This isn’t something we have to fight. This is something we can use.”

“Meaning?

“We know little of the Sibyllae, but they have interests the same as anyone. We investigate. We find out what those interests are. We appeal to them—”

“We plunge Akielos back into an age of superstition.”

Laurent sighed. He gestured at the bull’s head. “What is this?”

Damen blinked. “It’s a bull’s head.”

“It’s Tauros, god of agriculture. What about that one?” He nodded at the figure on the next plinth, a handsome woman with a spear and shield, also freshly painted. When Damen didn’t answer, Laurent said, “It’s Theasoteira, patroness of the kyroi.”

“We honor and preserve the relics of old Artes. It doesn’t mean—”

“Did you notice the carved wooden post at every crossroads we passed? With tortoise shells and oranges scattered around the base? Those are waymarkers of Trikephalos, who guards roads and keeps travelers safe when they are from home. They do not call attention to it, but your people still honor the gods. Every inn we stayed in had a household shrine tucked away somewhere. Your people will _listen_ to the Sibyllae.”

Damen resisted the urge to topple the bull-headed column. “Like barbarians,” he growled. That was all Laurent saw when he looked at Akielos.

Laurent sighed and led Damen down the path to another statue, this one of a beautiful laughing boy with goat legs. “Every spring in Vere, all the palaces and manor houses open their doors for a day. Great feasts are set out for the common folk, traveling acting troupes are treated as royalty, and in every village large enough to have a square, a lowborn youth and maid are crowned as rulers for a day, a reversal of the usual order. Komos isn’t mentioned by name, but it’s still called the Festival of the Commedia, and I assure you, there would be open revolt if I ever tried to end it.”

“That is not the same as encouraging it.” But Damen was finding it harder to argue against the sense Laurent was making. He considered Laurent’s other schemes—the Kingsmeet, Ravenel, Nesson. The path hadn’t been comfortable, but they’d always arrived at Laurent’s intended destination. “You have a plan?”

Laurent’s answering smile was smug. “Don’t I always?” Waving for the seneschal who’d been quietly waiting at the garden’s edge, he said, “bring Sibyl Cymone. King Damianos is interested in speaking with the Sibyllae.”

***

They had finished a turn around the reflecting pool and settled on a bench beneath a fragrant grape arbor by the time the seneschal returned with the priestess. Damen’s irritation had cooled.

It rose again the moment Sibyl Cymone spoke. “King Laurent,” she said to Laurent. To Damen, she merely said, “Prince Damianos,” with no bow or even nod of her head in respect to their rank.

“Is that how you wish to start this conversation, Sybil Cymone?” Damen asked.

“The Sibyllae recognize neither kings nor slaves. All are equal before the gods, and also,” she gave him an unreadable look, “I have no seat for you to threaten to force a lie from my lips.”

Laurent lifted a languid hand. “And yet you acknowledge our sovereignty over Vere, but not King Damianos’ sovereignty over Akielos?”

Studying him with a shrewd gaze, Cymone said, “The question of Vere’s succession was never brought to the Sibyllae.” She turned that gaze on Damen. “The question of Akielos’ succession was. We prayed to the gods and received their answer. We cannot rescind the will as it was shown to us.”

Damen muttered, “And if that will happens to mean your order’s return to relevance…” It was good that Damen was still recovering from his wounds, or he suspected the quelling glare leveled on him by Laurent would have been an elbow to his gut.

And yet, his words were the first thing to draw an expression from Cymone. She smiled. “Well, yes. The gods tire of only being heeded by old women.”

Damen found himself fighting his own smile. He’d get worse than an elbow to the gut from Laurent if he started liking their adversary.

“So if King Damianos were to accept the reinstatement of the Sibyllae,” Laurent started, and was stopped by a shake of Cymone’s head.

“His rule is already ill-omened thrice over—a deadly illness, a deadly wound, and a father’s death unavenged.”

Damen sat forward. “I avenged it.”

“No.” She nodded at Laurent. “ _He_ did.”

This time, Laurent did touch Damen to quell his reaction, laying a hand on his arm. “In Vere, we also have fallen out of practice of appeasing the gods, but certainly there must be ways.”

Cymone didn’t immediately answer. Gaze flicking to Laurent’s hand on Damen’s arm, and then to the gold cuffs they both wore, she said, “I have heard that you hope to unite Akielos and Vere as they once were in old Artes.”

Laurent slid his hand into Damen’s. Their cuffs clinked. Given how much he hated public touch, it could only be calculated, but Cymone wouldn’t know that. “And to end slavery. Either one would be a challenge. Both together seems impossible, but with the support of the—”

Damen squeezed Laurent’s hand in warning.

“—the Sibyllae, who knows what we might achieve for Akielos and Vere?”

Brow furrowed, Cymone was nodding along. “Yes, yes.” And then, sharply, a shake of her head, her hand cutting through her own agreement. “No. After such ill omens, only a sibyl might appease the gods.”

“On our behalf, you mean?” Laurent said, silkily, a serpent curling around its prey for the strike.

 “No, I mean that only by dedicating themselves as a sibyl could anyone hope to remove such a stain.”

“Fine,” Damen said, past patience with this nonsense and ready to call it with nonsense of his own. “Then tell me how I become a sibyl. I’ll take this up with the gods myself.”

***

“I didn’t think she would take me seriously!” Damen said later—much later—in his bedchamber.

Laurent paced back and forth, coat thrown aside, shirt flowing free, golden hair in disarray from tugging.

“That’s no excuse for—” His fingers curled and uncurled as though he’d very much like to strangle Damen. “I told you, I had a _plan._ ”

“The conversation didn’t seem to be going according to your plan.”

Laurent stopped pacing. “One adjusts to circumstances,” he said, enunciating each word carefully.

“Yes, and I adjusted.”

“No, you… you… _bumbled!_ ”

Damen couldn’t help himself. He gave over to laughter, and laughed even harder at the exasperated glare Laurent shot his way.

“Come here.”

“I don’t think I will.”

Fine, if the river wouldn’t come to the ocean. Damen closed the space between them in three steps, wrapping his arms around Laurent, who glared up at him. With his hair backlit by the lamps and shifting with every breath of Damen’s laughter, he looked like a particularly offended dandelion.

“I love you,” Damen said, the emotion breaking free before reason and sense could dam it.

At the very least, the declaration usurped Laurent’s anger. He blinked, tight-clamped lips softening into a gasp of surprise. “I…” he said, and then no more. The silence stretched to the point of discomfort.

The twinge in Damen’s gut owed nothing to his wound. He caught Laurent’s parted lips in a soft kiss, creating an excuse for the extended silence. Laurent held still, neither resisting nor participating. Pulling back, Damen said, “It isn’t as bad as all that, is it?” leaving the choice to Laurent which ‘it’ he wanted Damen to mean.

“We… will have to leave Ios and go to Isthima,” Laurent said, opting for the less fraught topic of politics. But he didn’t move out of the loose circle of Damen’s arms, which Damen counted as a victory. “Where the kyros has a navy and isn’t kindly disposed towards either of us. If she decides she would rather have a different set of kings to annoy her, there will be little to stop her.”

“She won’t betray us.”

“Because of honor.” Laurent’s deadpan drawl indicated how much he trusted the concept or Damen’s trust in it. “Even if we can trust Alkyone, there’s this Trial of the Sibyl, the details of which we aren’t allowed to know, and then…”

“And then the symbolic marriage of the sibyl to the kyros, according to the Artesian tradition,” Damen finished. Cymone had said little about the trial, but she’d gone on at length about how convenient it was that Laurent had been named as kyros—blithely ignoring that it was Damen who’d done the naming. “A marriage of Akielos and Vere. Is it the prospect of the trial that upsets you, or is it that?”

Letting his brow rest against Damen’s shoulder, Laurent said, “Don’t be ridiculous. That is what we wanted. It is only…”

Damen had a very good idea what it was. “Stop thinking,” he said, pressing his lips to Laurent’s temple, the shell of his ear, the warm pulse beneath his jaw. He got a shudder in response. Laurent’s hands clenched and unclenched on Damen’s hips.

“No, it’s… there are too many unknowns, factors I can’t control—”

“And that won’t change before morning, so stop thinking about them,” Damen said and set about sucking a bruise into the skin at the curve of Laurent’s neck.

It was effective, but not effective enough. After a few breathless gasps, Laurent stuttered, “I could… research. You m-must have books on the Sibyll— _ah!_ ”

That in response to Damen’s thigh between his legs. Damen pressed the advantage. Just in case, he found Laurent’s mouth again. “Stop. Thinking,” he said between kisses.

“Your wound—”

“Now you’re just trying to annoy me.”

Laurent’s smile was its own form of concession, but it faded quickly as another shadow passed behind Laurent’s eyes. “If we could delay a few weeks, I could bring Vere’s navy…”

Enough of this. Backing Laurent up to one of the bed columns, Damen dropped to his knees. “Nevermind. Go ahead and _try_ to think,” he said, and pressed his open mouth to the brocade covering Laurent’s cock.

Laurent’s answer was an incomprehensibly strangled noise, and then several breaths, and then, faintly, “I am being s-serious.”

“S’m I,” Damen mumbled against the fabric, the weave catching the heat and wetness of his mouth. Finally, he managed to pull the laces loose and push the fabric aside. Laurent’s restless hands settled on Damen’s head, nails digging into his scalp. Damen moaned around a mouthful of Laurent’s balls, and was rewarded with the slightest hitch of breath.

He pulled free, nuzzling his way up the length of Laurent’s cock. “You were saying,” he prodded, tonguing the slit and catching the drop of come beading there. When no answer was forthcoming, Damen looked up.

Laurent’s gaze was focused on something across the room, his lush lower lip buttoned by his teeth. Whatever thoughts occupied him, he was still turning them over, not yet ready to share.

Damen ran his tongue in a circle and then took Laurent in his mouth. Laurent’s eyes fluttered closed and his lips parted, fingers tightening and loosening in Damen’s hair. With his mouth otherwise full, Damen could only hum his encouragement.

“I don’t want to force you.”

Slowly, sucking, Damen pulled up. He pushed up Laurent’s shirt, spreading his hand over his belly. It was taught with his effort to retain control, to hold himself back.

“You aren’t,” Damen assured him, recognizing that Laurent was only half present. He waited to continue until Laurent was with him, until he made it clear what he wanted Damen to do.

Looking down, Laurent brushed the hair out of Damen’s eyes, back from his brow. “You haven’t asked me about…” His lips trembled, and he flattened them into their usual hard line.

“No,” Damen said, and, “Do you want me to?”

Laurent hesitated, then, “No.” It was more breath than sound.

Damen nodded. “Do you want me to stop?”

The hesitation was shorter this time. “… No.”

Kissing the taught skin of his belly, the vee between abdomen and leg, the sparsely-haired thigh, Damen made a slow, roundabout path towards Laurent’s cock. “Do you want me to continue?”

And quicker still, “Yes.”

“Show me.” _Make me_. If Laurent found comfort in control, then Damen would give him that comfort.

Tentatively at first, Laurent’s fingers tightened in Damen’s hair, pulling, guiding him. Damen opened his mouth, relaxed his throat, let Laurent choose the speed and the depth. And then, as Laurent grew in confidence, let him hold Damen in place so he could slide in and out.

Damen gave himself over to the pull of his hair, the shivers that coursed from his scalp to his cock, to the choking urge whenever Laurent pushed him to the edge. He wrapped an arm around Laurent, digging fingers under brocade to find bare skin, and urged him on. Now, finally, when they had the time Damen had wished for, when they had the promise of a future he’d never thought possible, all Damen wanted from him was harder, faster. He wanted Laurent to take control if that was what he needed to do to lose control.

When the first harsh grunt broke through the soft sounds of sucking lips and tongue and skin, it confused Damen. It couldn’t have come from him. And then Laurent thrust deep again, and again came the sound. Damen felt it in the fingers splayed across Laurent’s belly, a tremor under the skin. His own need tightened in answer. Reaching under his chiton, he took himself in hand and stroked in time with those gloriously guttural noises rising from deep in Laurent’s gut.

Laurent found his release first. He tried to free Damen, but Damen was having none of that. He kept his nose pressing toward the base, throat flexing as he swallowed everything—cock, come, and the sounds that had broken into helpless flutters of breath. Only when his own climax was near did he pull away, resting his brow against a sharp hipbone and catching his release in the cup of his hand.

Sliding down the bedpost, Laurent splayed out before him—legs spread, shirt rucked up behind him. The flush of sex was still high on his cheeks, his lips swollen from biting. The fingers of one hand tangled in Damen’s hair, combing absently.

Damen had never seen Laurent this undone. He sat with a handful of cooling come, unwilling to move.

Laurent’s eyes opened. The black of his pupil edged out the blue iris. Any moment now, he would rise, move away, take the time he needed to collect himself.

But as moments passed and their breathing eased, he did none of those things. Instead, he occupied his attention with ordering Damen’s tangled curls into neat ringlets.

Finally, he met Damen’s gaze. “What you said earlier…”

No question what he was referring to. “I meant it.”

“I know.” Laurent shook his head, staring at Damen like he was a puzzle that continued to confound. “I…”

“Don’t need to say anything.”

After a moment, Laurent’s brow smoothed and his lips firmed. He nodded. “Take me to bed.”

“Happily, but,” Damen held up a sticky hand. “Perhaps I should clean up first?”

***

The following days passed in a rush of preparations. Damen’s suggestion that Nikandros should stay in Ios was met with a snort and stone-faced refusal.

“Your steward is better suited to run things here, and to arrange your coronation at the Kingsmeet,” Nikandros said, by which he meant that the steward was the best person to smooth over any resistance after Damen’s previous visit to the Kingsmeet. “And if you’re worried about losing the capital, tell Makedon to stay. He can keep Therapon and Oulixes in line.”

“Alkyone,” Damen started, and was silenced by Nikandros’ glare.

“ _I_ can keep her in line. Jord will help me,” he added as Jord entered Damen’s suite with another armload of dusty books and scrolls for Laurent to study. They had found little useful information on the Sibyllae in the royal library. Generations of Akielon kings and queens had been thorough at eradicating any reliable records.

“What did he say?” Jord asked, his Akielon still only remedial. “What am I helping with?”

“I’ll explain,” Nikandros said, and drew him away.

With Nikandros and Jord accompanying them, their remaining entourage was largely decided. Lazar and Pallas would come as well—it was difficult to separate them these days. Vannes had already returned to Vere with the council, where discussions were ongoing about whether Laurent could be crowned immediately, or whether it still needed to wait until his twenty-first birthday. In this case, the delay served Laurent’s purposes, so he allowed it to continue.

Paschal would come, ostensibly to continue to oversee Damen’s recovery, but if anything did go wrong, it wouldn’t hurt to have a doctor with them whom they could trust.

“Especially with poisons,” Paschal had said. “Legend has it the Sibyllae take all manner of drugs to commune with the gods.”

Damen left it to Nikandros and Jord to select the remainder of the honor guard.

A week after Damen’s extemporaneous demand to be inducted into the Sibyllae, they were aboard a ship bound for Isthima. Damen stood at the bow and reflected on the differences between this and the last time he’d left Ios aboard ship—what differences he could remember. He’d been drugged insensate most of that journey, chained, beaten, betrayed, and alone.

“What is it?” Laurent asked, coming up beside him.

Damen cast a glance back at Ios, the harbor, the cliffs, the white palace gleaming in the late summer sun.

“When you left Arles, did you worry you wouldn’t see it again?”

“When I left Arles, my uncle held it, and the council, and the good opinion of most of the court. I was traveling to my death with an untrained force, and I’d been forced to keep the man I hated second-most in the world as my body slave.”

The edge of Laurent’s hand brushed the edge of Damen’s where they both rested on the rail. “No, I didn’t expect to see it again, but I was determined to be wrong.”

They fell silent, letting the music of creaking ropes, flapping sails, and breaking waves against the hull rise between them.

“Though it occurs to me,” said Laurent, “that I haven’t yet seen Arles again, so try not to get me killed?”

“Oh, well,” Damen said, amused. “When you put it _that_ way, I suppose I can try.”

**Author's Note:**

> Dear Recipient,
> 
> When I saw your request go past on the pinch hit list, I shared your wish for more worldbuilding around mythology/religion -- especially since I'm such a sucker for Greek/Roman mythology. Since I found myself with a bit of extra time, I figured I'd give some worldbuilding a whirl for you as a treat. I... may have gotten a bit carried away. I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> Many thanks to kurayami_hime for the beta!


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